Third-party apps: Watch out!

It has been written much about how useful mobile gadgets are for the business process. Apps make employees more effective and flexible, they literally can make the working flow infinite.

That’s one side of the coin, the better one.

Another side can be seen with the help of the recent CloudLock report. The case is, with rising of a number of mobile gadgets used by employees, a number of third-party apps in the inner business process have risen, as well. In its turn, it raises the security threats towards the working environment. The number of third-party apps with a direct connection to the corporate environment is reported to be equal to 5,500 – 150,000 apps (30-fold increase over the last two years).

CloudLock considers around 27% of the apps for the business environment as ones with high risk: a lot of opportunities for cybercriminals to break in. However, many companies take a note of this and ban such apps from their processes.

Ayse Kaya-Firat states that the most dangerous apps are the ones that somehow relate to the corporate backbone, for example, asking for corporate credential authorization that gives them access to the network. Even not-used apps can be dangerous still having access to the data being inactive. Such a situ requires specific app control and policy of their usage. So, be aware and take action!